Reducing Blackboard Course Size

At the University of Miami, we currently recommend faculty to maintain a course size quota under 2.5 GB to support the daily and long-term archiving of courses. From February 24, 2025, Blackboard's course size quota will be limited to 50GB per course as a temporary measure to reduce further performance issues to courses, with the expectation this will be reduced further by Fall 2025. The following guidance below outlines ways to reduce your course size.

Resources to Reduce Course Size

Course Size Guide

The following steps aim to help streamline course content and manage your course size. 

Access the Guide

Training

Attend live training for reducing large courses in Blackboard.

Register

Challenges with Large Courses

The University has implemented targeted efforts to support the long-term and efficient use of course materials in Blackboard through integrations such as Kaltura, OneDrive, and Ally. However, while courses older than four years are frequently archived, several challenges persist, particularly with large courses causing performance issues across the Blackboard system.

  • Nested Content: Courses often become large due to multiple copies of content within the course and its content collection. This content is usually older than four years and unused in current courses.
  • Multiple File Uploads: Students and faculty can upload up to 500MB at a time, but multiple uploads of 500MB can quickly accumulate to over 2GB.
  • Delayed Auto Archives: Changes to large courses trigger an auto-archive process that can take days to complete, delaying the timely archiving of other courses.
  • Export Limits: Courses larger than 2.5 GB require assistance to export and archive. Courses exceeding 50GB may need to be disabled or removed from the system to mitigate further impact.
  • Video Assignments: Student engagement activities, such as 'icebreaker' assignments involving video recordings, can significantly increase course size. With HD video commonly available on phones, these submissions and discussion board posts can consume substantial storage if not uploaded through Kaltura.

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